The Labor enquirer., 1887-12-03
A nuRDsR HOST EouE.
r., whole GhastIy nsehsry Va :
Prasl spsn Jssties.

The Newton tiisl Efoss
On last Friday four human be-
l mos we're murdered in Chicago
under color and sanction Of forms
Of aw-prostituted law. They
we're called anarchists; and the
general public have been given to
understand by the servile and We
nal city press that an anarchist is
a most ferocious and highly dan
cerous monster. 1t has been said
that they had a trial; as a matter
Of fact they had none; but a most
lucubrious farce was enacted,
which the gentlemen who had the
purpose Of hanging them in view
called, with singular Difference
70 the public taste, a trial. 1t was
such a trial as the hawk bestows
upon the captured spring chicken
he designs for his dinner. Moth
inq was omitted that could be
done to excite prejudice against
them. The local papers and as
sociated press lied unremittingly.
A mob Of officers headed by the
states attorney without any pro-
cess of law or legal right to do SO,
broke into the private residences
and Offices Of their selected vic
tins, seized their correspondence
aud private property and paraded
them before the eyes of a
prejudiced jury prcdisposed on
their own sworn admission S
to conviction. A creature fitted
by nature for the purpose had the
summening of the jury in hand
and boasted that he would select
such a panel that the defendants
would be hanged as sure as death.
The defendants, in open disregard
of their constitutional right, were
compelled to give eliminating ev-
idencc against themselves. 1t is
useless to follow the sinuosities OF
the trial; it is enough to state that
the whole CHASTITY mockery was
a fraud upon justice. They were
indicted as conspirators accessory
to the murder of Policeman De-
gan, a gallant officer who lost his
life in the discharge Of his duty at
what was called the Haymarket
riot; they we're convicted upon
evidence which showed they were
anarchists.
IL
II anything was wanting to
show that the condemned anarch-
lists we're the victims of class ha-
tired il could be found in the ava
lanche Of protests hurled upon
Governor Oglesby when clemency
was asked. They came from the
east and north, from men firms
and corporations who never knew
the condemned men and had never
received injury at their hands.
1t was disgusting! 1t was infa-
mousl ltbrought wildly to mind
Nthe old rabble shout Cruelty him
Cruelty him!"
They were convicted, not be-
cause they were guilty of any
crime, but because they constitut-
ted the intellectual leadership OF
the laboring masses of Chicago.
- Freedom Of speech and
freedom of press are inalienable
rights Of every American citizen.
They are rights which have cost
the best blood of the Anglo-Saxon
race upon the battlehelds of Eng
land and America to secure and
IN so lar as these rights were tram
pied upon in the persons of the
anarchists the individual sover-
elgnty of every American citizen
was outraged and violated.
They were hanged because OF
Their opinions and leadership of
ner class, not for any crime.
They died with the calm dignity
md un0iuching courage which are
attributes of heroic manhood.
nelr conviction is a disgrace to
tue jurisdiction of the nation and
= stencil in the nostrils of the civ